Falls Count Anywhere

07-23-04

Absolutely Derek's fault I'm late.

SmackDown!
I was not that impressed with most of SmackDown!. I actually watched a good deal of it Picture-in-picture while finally watching The Fifth Element. There were moments, but not enough to make it a good show.

The show opened with Kurt Angle doing a long interview in the ring. The man can still talk, but the GM gimmick has hurt his character quite a bit. I did like the line ‘I’m an extraordinary human being capable of extraordinary things.’ This interview made the whole show feel sluggish. I like it better when they start off with a match. Angle brought out Philly’s own Tony Chimmel and had him beg for his job. When he didn’t do a good enough job, Angle fired him.

The first match was Jamie Noble vs. Spike Dudley vs. Chavo Guerrero in a three-way for the Cruiserweight Number One Contendership. This was a solid match where the guys were able to use their different styles. At one point, Chavo tossed Noble to the outside and then Spike sent Chavo packing to the floor. Spike then hit a dive on both. Spike used his foot stomps and weird headbutts, and Chavo worked smart, sold well, and was thwarted everytime he went for one of his big moves. Noble is hurt, but held up his end well enough. Spike caught the Dudley Dawg on Chavo to get the pin. Solid match.

They showed a bunch of clips of the WWE’s shows from Japan. They were both huge successes live, made more than a million each. There were folks wearing Undertaker costumes, a bunch of them doing Dupree’s French Tickler, and everybody doin’ Cena’s hand symbol.

The girls of SmackDown!, Miss Jacky (Who was hot), Sable (Very Hot), Torrie (Hotter ‘an fire) and Dawn Marie (Holy Sweet Merciful Jebus, she was flamin’ H-O-T) were in the back trying to tell Kurt that they wanted something to do. Kurt said that they could have a Fatal Fourway Lingerie match later in the show. I would have preferred if he left out the Fatal, the Lingerie, and the Match.

Bubba Ray Dudley vs. Billy Kidman. These two worked pretty well together, especially early on when they got to do the back and forth stuff. They both know how to plan out a match and they did a good job. Paul London and D-Von fought, and after a while, Bubba hit the BubbaBomb for the pin.

Funaki, SmackDown! Number One Reporter, came out to interview Kurt. Kurt asked him if he was done butchering his language and introduced Booker T. He announced that Booker would be awarded the US title next week, but that The Book could wear it for old time’s sake. Angle then wheeled on Funaki and fired him. Odd.

John Bradshaw Layfield did an interview which wasn’t super, but he got a ton of heel heat from it. He then wrestled a jobber. They gave the jobber red tights. Apparently, after the match, he’s going to be part of an away team. Bradshaw destroyed him with a powerbomb and a Clothesline from Hell. The crowd was chanting for Eddie, but The Undertaker came out and stared at JBL. Brawshaw was about to announce his opponent for SummerSlam when he tried to attack UT, who then gave him a chokeslam.

John Heidenreich had a small promo with Paul Heyman. They’re gonna push him big and I bet they fail.

Another one just for Garcia...

The Fatal Fourway Match started when the ladies began to disrobe and all were muy caliente. I must say that Dawn Marie is the hottest woman on the WWE’s roster. As they were about to wrestle, Kurt came out, asked ‘Who would want to see a bunch of girls wrestle in their underwear?’ and fired all of them. That got him great heel heat.

D-Von Dudley took on Rey Mysterio in a match that used Rey’s size as an advantage. D-Von worked big man spots, which was a good idea, and after a while, Rey started hitting things like head scissors and went for a 619, but Bubba tripped him. Right after that, London and Kidman ran in and beat on Bubba before Kidman pushed D-Von off the top, allowing Rey to hit a 619 and a Springboard Splash for the pin. Fun, but too short, match. I like the way they are building the Dudley’s vs. London and Kidman feud.

Cena vs. Luther Reigns was not a very good match. Cena had a great line about Kurt’s wife cheatin’ with a couple of AA batteries. Luther isn’t a bad wrestler, much like Batista, he just needs time and to go along with the other guy. The finish was off, somehow, and the whole thing was only OK.

Kurt came out and called for Eddie. Vince McMahon came out and said that he would have gotten a medal for hiring a handicapped individual for GM, but since Angle was fakin’, he wasn’t gonna get one. A classic Vince line. Vince ended up firing Angle as GM, then hiring him back as a wrestler. Thank God. Eddie came out in his low-rider, mostly so the crowd would get to see him at least for a second or two.

NEWS
The WWE is getting serious about development of new talent. The Observer reported this week that they are looking at opening 3 new territories to start new talent, using Trax in Connecticut, one in Florida and one other. Both Dave Meltzer and I agree that it should be in LA, but the WWE will always be an East Coast-centric company. I gotta say it’s long overdue, but I am betting they will be able to pull enough talent in at first to justify the expense, though this will be the first place they start cutting when money gets tight.

Mick Foley and Linda McMahon will be at the Democratic convention. Not sure what they’ll be doin’, but it’ll be an interesting photo op. Mick has talked about the Flair stuff, but it’s obvious that he’s plannin’ it close to the vest.

Chynna, aka Chynna Doll, went on Stern and cried and babbled on. It was weird, as she’s been pretty good in most of her media appearances in the past. She said that she and X-Pac were over, which we’ve all heard before, and the she’s broke, which is probably true. She also said that X-Pac is in rehab, which was fairly widely-known, and that HHH and Vinny Mac are paying.

FlashBack!
The wrestling t-shirt. I went back through my memories and tried to figure when the first wrestling t-shirt hit the fans. I can remember the first ones I saw were in the Dallas Airport, probably about 1982. They were Von Erich t-shirts. My Dad wouldn’t buy me one, which I don’t think I have ever fully forgiven him for. World Class, the company run by Fritz Von Erich, was always on the forefront of all of these marketing ideas, so it wouldn’t surprise me if they were the first to do t-shirts. The other group that I would credit with having enough forward vision to hit on the idea would be Mid-South, run by Bill Watts. I know they were selling shirts by 1983, but I am betting they had a few available well before that.

The other possible claim-holder would be Japan. I can remember seeing a Japanese t-shirt in the mid-1980s for Inoki and another for All Japan. These may have been made for the crews, so I don’t think it would count. I can remember the day at Disneyland where I saw both of them. Disney has always been a great place to find Japanese wrestling fans.

While not the first, certainly, the AWA was doing Hulk Hogan t-shirts on a limited scale starting in late 1982. I’ve only seen a couple and they are pretty simple.

Not as valuable as the Suburban Commando cologne set.

The first real wave of huge t-shirt sales happened when the WWF started putting out their Hulk Hogan t-shirts. Once Hogan’s shirts started taking off, every major, and most every minor, star starting getting their own shirts. There was a huge pull-out section of most WWF magazines dedicated to their shirts. The Hogan shirts sold big numbers and were the first to be worn out in the real world. There are estimates that about a million of Hogan’s shirts sold in the first year, which is huge.

The NWA’s shirts came shortly thereafter, and tended to be of cheaper quality. The Ric Flair and Dusty Rhodes t-shirts did OK, though you were more likely to see a kid wearing one of the awesome Randy Macho Man Savage shirts at an NWA event than the home product’s shirts. After the switch from NWA to WCW in 1988, the quality and quantity of shirts blossomed.

The most memorable shirts of the early WWF era were the Savage shirt, the Hot Rod shirt for Roddy Piper (which sold as well as Hogan’s shirts immediately following his 1986 turn), Ricky Steamboat, Rick Rude, and the British Bulldog shirts. There were also good ones for Miss Elizabeth, George Steel, Andre the Giant. A later Andre shirt was even cooler, as they made shirts in Andre’s actual size (plus a little bit) and had Andre’s hand print on the front. These were sold as nightshirts for years, up until Andre’s death in 1992.

The t-shirt biz started booming in the early 1990s, and the WWF was doing quality shirts, and the WCW was putting out some nice ones too. The big splashes came in 1996. The nWo was the hottest gimmick in wrestling, with Hall and Nash leading the way. Early on, after Hogan gave them the New World Order name, nWo t-shirts starting popping up everywhere. They became the method of identification for wrestling fans. They were also frequently used in the storylines, as someone wearing an nWo shirt was instantly a member. There were many imitators, most notably ECW’s Blue World Order shirts, and the Latino World Order shirts that WCW put out themselves.

The nWo shirts might have been the ones to give South Park shirts a run for their money if it hadn’t have been for an interview that Stone Cold Steve Austin did after beating Jake the Snake Roberts at King of the Ring. In it, he said that Roberts could ‘talk about your Bible and your John 3:16. Well Austin 3:16 says I just kicked your ass!’ This set off a wave of shirts. The classic Austin 3:16 shirt with the flaming skull on the front eclipsed every other shirt ever made. Even Hogan at his peak didn’t sell as many shirts, though, if you added all the shirts he sold over his career, Hogan is still number 1. Austin’s shirts got more and more interesting. The Rock, who had a number of great shirts, still didn’t sell in the Austin range.

ECW was another company that used the shirt wisely. Guys who were in it for the company, like Tommy Dreamer, wore ECW shirts to show that they were faces. The ECW would also serve as the sign that you were a hard core wrestling fan. I remember seeing ECW shirts on guys in LA when I was down there in 1997.

The t-shirt continues through to today, one of the WWE’s most profitable sectors. Japanese t-shirts are just as collectable as their Stateside counter-parts. I really like old All Japan shirts, and the current wave of Pro Wrestling NOAH shirts rule.

That’s all for this week. Next week, more fun.

Chris Garcia